Slain Man Mourned, Celebrated
‘We Love You, Fu,’ Proclaim Participants in Kelley Street VigilBy Kelly Jasper
HARRISONBURG — They stood, faces lifted to the dark night, and shouted together, “We love you, Fu.” They stood, voices crying out “Amen,” as fireworks exploded on the corner of Kelley and Myrtle streets. They stood, as a community shook by the death of one of its well-known peacemakers, and sang to him.
They are the family and friends of Paul Jackson, a 33-year-old Harrisonburg man who was shot to death Wednesday morning.
More than 60 people gathered to remember the man, a bystander who family and friends say got caught up in a street fight.
Chad Pouncey, 19, also of Harrisonburg, was charged in his death. Pouncey and Jackson were friends who lived in the same northeastern Harrisonburg neighborhood, said Jackson’s wife, Carol.
She pleaded with the crowd gathered at Thursday night’s memorial to work together to make their neighborhood a stronger, safer place in which to live.
“I’m asking you, please, let’s come together and stop the madness,” she said. “We are killing each other for no reason at all.”
And then she asked them to pray — for both families.
“We have lost two good people tonight,” Carol Jackson said.
The neighborhood, she said, needed more men like her husband, more people to stand up and make a difference.
“Kelley Street is not your street, or your street, or your street,” she said pointing to the crowd. “Kelley Street is our street.”
And Kelley Street needs to come together in peace, she said. “It shouldn’t have had to come to this.”
The crowd nodded in the candlelight, surrounding a collection of candles that were part of a memorial set up on the sidewalk Wednesday night. The candles burned through the night — family friend Aaron McAfee said he saw them still lit at 6:30 the next morning.
McAfee spoke at the vigil.
“It’s a turning point,” he said. “Paul put back into this community. We need to change its perception, for him.”
McAfee is Pouncey’s cousin and a friend of Jackson’s.
The violence, McAfee said, “is exactly what Fu stood against.”
Lisa Cubbage, 31, of Harrisonburg, said Jackson would have loved to see the community come together as it did Thursday night.
“Fu was a celebration person,” she told the crowd, referring to Jackson by his nickname.
He would have wanted his death to pull the community together, said Cubbage, Carol Jackson’s sister.
“We want to make his death mean something. … Do not let this separate us,” Cubbage said. “We’re bigger than this. We’re better than this. This is what he would have wanted, to go out with a celebration.”
And so fireworks exploded, friends shared a drink and family gathered, united in song.
“A celebration it was,” Cubbage said.
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